Parson Goffin and old Christopher Benham had dined together, and sat facing each other on either side of the fire.
Kit Benham was past sixty, and had drunk himself into premature dotage. A pursy, ponderous, florid man, he could do little more than sit in his padded chair, smoke interminable pipes, and drink perpetual beer. He was a gross man, who could hardly speak without uttering all manner of quaint and ingenious oaths. Already his legs were swollen with dropsy, and they were propped on a joint stool as he fumed and pulled at his pipe.
"Four horses, Parson; four blazing, burning, heaven-forsaken beasts pinched by eternally accursed, skunk-livered, black-mouthed thieves! My lad shot in the arm, too, and abed, with old Blister of Battle running up a bill! Tell me to be an addle-brained, pond-waterweed of a Christian! Grrrh!"
The great thing about Parson Goffin was his gout. He was a knobbly man, the colour of leather, and he always sat with his knees drawn up and his bumpy feet tucked away under his chair as though he dreaded having them trodden on. Goffin might have been in the habit of using Cayenne pepper in place of snuff, for his nose looked so angry. Gout had made him explosive, yet this explosiveness suited the neighbourhood. It threw him into sympathy with his surroundings, and made him popular with the hot-tongued squires and farmers. Goffin was the very man for a grievance. He took it as a dog takes a rat, crunched it, shook it to and fro, not indeed to kill, but out of sympathy for the aggrieved friend.
"They will catch the rogues, sir; catch them and hang them."
Kit Benham flourished his pipe.
"By old Nick's bones, Parson, that's just what they won't do. We are driven clear crazy by these infernal French. All the oafs in the county are standing and gaping all day at the sea. And all the flea-bitten scoundrels in the county rob and do just as they please."
"Yes, sir; perhaps in this world, sir. But think how they will burn in the next!"
"I should like to see it, Goffin, by all the lies of Ananias—I should like to see it!"
"They'll all sizzle, sir—just like apples."
Christopher Benham expanded his nostrils.
"To smell 'm singeing! Dear heart—I'd be ready to go there myself, surely! Thank God, sir, there is a hell."
"Thank God, sir, indeed. Think of all the thieves there ever were going up in glorious black smoke."
"Don't, sir—don't—Goffin! The thought of it makes me too infernally excited."
"Happy, you mean, sir. Hallo now, I hear wheels on the drive."
A green curricle had swept up past the cedars on the lawn, and drawn up outside the house. Jack Bumpstead came running from somewhere, pulling an eager forelock. A young woman with a rather sallow face, and a short, upturned nose, threw Jack the reins. She had blue eyes that stared, and a quick, masterful manner. A prim little bonnet caressed the neat plaits of her reddish hair.
"Lucky there are any springs left to the carriage, Jack! These by-roads!"
"Ah, miss, you oughtn't to take her off t' main road, sure-ly!"
"Squire Christopher in? And Master Jasper? Yes, I have heard all about it, Jack—all, thank you."
"Parson Goffin be with the squire in the oak parlour."
"Oh, is he! I thought I saw flames coming out of the chimney!"
Into the oak parlour marched this brisk and urgent young woman with her queer blending of piety and worldliness. Parson Goffin rose stiffly and made her a formal bow. Mr. Christopher Benham pointed with his pipe stem at the legs reposing on the stool.
"Laid up, see. Can't move. Goffin can do the bowing. Well, young woman, you look too fat."
"Mr. Goffin, do you agree with my uncle?"
"I never interfere between relatives, Miss Benham."
"Oh, don't you! So Jasper has been getting into the wars. Four horses, was it? Lucky that Devil Dick came back. I hear some people at Stonehanger took pity on Jasper. Durrell or Darrell or Barrell or something. Who are they?"
Christopher Benham looked at her irritably.
"Just like her mother; talks like a water-wheel. Don't ask me, girl, how should I know? Ask the parson, he knows everybody's business."
Mr. Goffin grinned, and showed his tobacco-blackened teeth.
"Durrell is the name, Miss Benham. They are queer folk, I hear. The man is a bookworm, deist, encyclopædist, atheist, anything you like. I don't know much about them. No one does. This Durrell put it about that he wanted to be left alone. He is."
Mr. Goffin took snuff and sneezed, turning his angry nose toward the fire.
"Then it was the girl who picked Jasper out of the road?"
"The girl! Thunder and cabbages, the lad never told us that."
Kit Benham heaved with laughter.
"A girl, was there? Oh, the rogue! I know nothing about it. You had better ask Jasper. May old Nick boil my marrow-bones——"
Rose Benham had her Methodist face—for the moment.
"Uncle Christopher, when will you learn to be clean in your speech?"
"What!"
"It is contemptible, at your age."
"Thunder and lightning, can't I swear in my own house? Here's Goffin, too; he's a good judge of language. You go and see Jasper. He's in bed."
"I will."
She left Parson Goffin and her uncle staring at each other. Then Squire Kit spluttered:
"If that girl hadn't got a thousand a year of her own, hang, draw, and quarter me if I'd——"
"Ssh, sir; ssh! She is your brother's daughter."
"Bah, she's not! She's his cat-faced wife's cat-clawed daughter! They killed poor Nat between 'em with their little goody books and their snuffle."
Rose Benham had climbed the broad stairs, noticing a number of trivial things, such as dust on the bannister rail, and cobwebs in some of the corners. Jasper was lying asleep in the oak four-poster when his cousin knocked at the door.
He woke out of the thick of a dream, to hear Rose's metallic voice calling:
"Jasper, can I come in?"
They had been children together, but no such thing as false modesty would have kept Rose Benham out of her cousin's room. She entered breezily, without a fleck of colour on her cheeks, her blue eyes full of a frank, intimate interest. Three years older than Jasper, she still treated him as a boy.
"This is a nice affair! Getting shot when you are wanted to drill your volunteers on the green of a Sunday. Not that I can call them anything but a lot of waddling ducks. And you have had old Blister Doddington, have you? I hope he was sober. And you are sure he has set your arm properly?"
Her pale-blue eyes and her reddish hair seemed to tone with her brisk self-confidence. Rose Benham knew what she expected of life, and she meant life to satisfy her expectations. Whisking a rush-bottomed chair from a corner, she sat down beside the bed, talking the whole time. She was one of those women who overwhelm the world with words.
"Well, what an adventure! And how does it feel to be picked up out of the road by a young woman? Yes, I have heard all about it."
She laughed her quick, harsh laugh.
"Don't look at me as if such things happened every day! You men, you take everything for granted. And here am I dying to hear all about it. Cousin Rose has a right to know, hasn't she?"
There was a subtle suggestion of ownership in the way she put out a hand and smoothed the pillow. Jasper was not wholly the boy cousin to her. He was the man she had determined to marry.
Jasper looked bothered. Rose had such a way of driving people into a corner.
"There is nothing to tell. One of the rogues waited for me in the dark, and shot me in Stonehanger Lane. They just helped me into the house, and I spent the night there. Jack fetched me in the wagon yesterday morning."
She grew caressing, and a caressing mood never suited her. She was too thin, too hard about the eyes.
"Now, Jasper, you know——"
"What do you want me to tell you, Rose?"
"Why, everything. Dear lad, do you think it is nothing?"
"I'm not dead, or likely to be."
Their eyes met. There was something in Jasper's that repulsed the girl. She stiffened, and withdrew her hand.
"You know, Jasper, these things sometimes come to us from above. They are messages, divine warnings."
It was her doctrinal phase, and she had inherited it from her mother. Jasper glanced at her uneasily, and then stared at the window. He had never realised it so vividly before that Rose talked to him as though he belonged to her.
"It pulls a man up, and makes him think."
"Yes; only men will put off the thinking. Though I don't believe you are that sort of man, Jasper. You are steady, and sensible, and I know you read your Bible."
Jasper turned restlessly on the pillow. Her cool way of discussing him to himself, of approving and disapproving as though she had a kind of authority, had always rather amused him. Whether some new intelligence had come to him in the course of two days, he could not tell. One thing he did know. He had discovered a sudden new significance in his cousin's attitude toward himself.
"I'm afraid I'm a stupid fool, Rose. I still have a head from that bump in the road."
"Poor Jasper!"
Her hand came out, and for the moment there was something very like repulsion in Jasper's eyes.
"Now, I won't chatter any longer. Go to sleep. I will draw the curtains. There, lad. And now I will go and have a talk with Uncle Christopher."
Said Squire Christopher to the parson when the green curricle had driven off along the road across the paddock: "There's a hell-cat for you, Goffin; preach at you or scratch your face—whichever you please. The image of her dear mother. She means to marry lad Jasper."
The parson refilled his pipe.
"What have you to say to that, sir?"
"If Jasper cares to be caught, I shan't meddle. What's more, one woman's very like another. I don't believe in a man marrying the woman he's in love with."
"But, Mr. Benham—sir!"
"What! You don't see how it works? Why, sir, marry a woman you dislike and you will always be in love with some charmer who won't nag your head off. A man ought to go out loving as he goes out hunting; it's a sour, dull sport in your own yard. Poor Nat was ruled by his wife. But Jasper's got grit. Maybe he'd tame Miss Rose. And don't you see, Goffin, there's something in a thousand a year and more to come! You don't expect good looks and a sweet temper when you get so much cash."
As for the two people under discussion, Rose had driven off with a tightly shut mouth and three lines of thought across her forehead, while Jasper lay abed with a chafed and uneasy conscience. Generous men are always inclined to be severe upon themselves, when some unforeseen clash of the emotions makes them look at life very seriously. Jasper was puzzled with regard to Rose, and angry with himself. Had he been blind, and missed seeing things that had been very visible to others?
One thing he did know. He was haunted perpetually by the face and voice of Nance Durrell.
As for Nance herself, the sun shone on her as she sat on the stone parapet of the terrace garden at Stonehanger, and looked toward the sea. Nance had developed a passion for gardening, and had adventurously set herself to grow flowers in that wind-swept upland garden. She had made old David dig her a broad border at the edge of the stone path, and she had searched the overrun garden at the back of the house for stray plants that had managed to survive the weeds. Old David had bought her a few roots from some of the cottages at Rookhurst, and Nance had pansies, sweetwilliams, pinks, foxgloves, lavender, and a few roses ready to bloom in the coming summer. Several clumps of daffodils waved their golden heads in the wind. A rake, a trowel, and a wooden trug lay on the grass beside her. Her hands were brown with soil, and she sat and forgot for a moment that such things as flowers existed.
She was thinking of Jasper Benham, and wondering how he did with his broken arm. His brown face, square jaw, and steady blue eyes had seemed very pleasant to her. Something in him had called to her own youth.
Her father's voice startled her from her reverie. He was looking out of an upper window, the window of his study, the wind blowing his white hair over his forehead.
"Nance."
"Yes, father."
"What are you idling there for, child?"
"I wasn't idling—I was thinking."
"Oh, and what may these most serious thoughts be?"
His morose and peering curiosity puzzled her, but she was quite frank in her answering.
"I was wondering how Mr. Benham is?"
"Tssh—do you call that thinking! Go in and brew me some tea."
Nance glanced over her shoulder as she knelt. A man had appeared round the corner of the house and was walking toward her along the stone-paved path. He was a tall man, dressed in black, with roguish, sinister eyes, an arrogant mouth, and a haughty way of carrying his head and shoulders.
Anthony Durrell turned and seemed nonplussed for the moment.
"It is you, Chevalier——"
De Rothan was a magnificent fool when a pretty woman held the stage. He gave Nance one of his French-Irish bows, hat over his heart, the heels of his shoes together. De Rothan had the reddish, raddled skin, and the angry blue eyes of the Irishman. The refinements were French, the cleverness, the subtlety, the love of intrigue.
"Mr. Durrell, present a poor exile to your daughter."
Nance had risen from her piece of sacking. Her hands were stained with soil, and stooping had flushed her face. The stranger's magnificent manners seemed out of place. She believed that the man was quizzing her.
Durrell closed his book with a snap, courteous under compulsion.
"Nance, this is the Chevalier de Rothan; an old friend of mine. I knew him in France many years ago."
De Rothan laughed, with his eyes on Nance.
"Mees Durrell, your father would make me out an old man! But it is not so. I can run and leap against any lad of twenty."
There are some men whose vanity cannot be controlled when they are brought into the presence of women. De Rothan was such a man. He was the peacock on the instant, strutting, swaggering, not content unless he outshone all other men.
"Though an exile, the English women have almost made me forget my France. Why is it, Mees Durrell, that the English women have such beautiful skins? Roses and milk, roses and milk."
Nance said nothing. The man's voice had driven her into a confusion of conjectures. If he were an old friend of her father's, how was it she had never heard of him before? And why all this midnight mystery, the stealthy coming by night?
She realised that both De Rothan and her father were watching her. It was imperative that she should speak to him, or seem like a gauche child.
"I am glad to see an old friend of my father's."
"Mees Durrell, will you make me old!"
"I don't think you are very young!"
He laughed and bowed.
"Mam'selle, your father is the cleverest of men. But to have such a daughter! That was a stroke of genius."
Nance smiled, but there was no pleasure in her smile. She supposed these were French manners, but they made her feel foolish and ill at ease.
"I am afraid father has never spoken to me of you."
She noticed that the men exchanged glances. Durrell intervened.
"Nance, child, the Chevalier will take tea with us."
"Yes, father."
She understood the hint and was glad to go. There was something puzzling and unwholesome about the man.
De Rothan followed her with his eyes.
"Faith, sir, the child is charming, and so innocent."
Durrell was not pleased.
"Do not try your airs and graces here, my friend."
"Psst—I am perfectly sincere. I pay homage to beauty——"
"Curtail it. Shall we walk a little way over the common?"
He glanced at the windows of the house, crossed the terrace and descended the steps. De Rothan followed him, staring with a certain whimsical contempt at Durrell's back.
"Has the young squire been here again?"
"This very morning—at six o'clock."
"Youth is in a hurry!"
"I have put a bridle upon his eagerness. I sent him packing. And Nance knows."
"Knows what?"
"That young Benham is a reprobate, and a loose liver."
"The devil she does! You told her?"
"Certainly. I did not mean the friendship to develop."
De Rothan looked half grave and half amused.
"Well, you have given me your news without miserliness. I return you news of my own. Villeneuve has got out of Toulon."
"What!"
"And has given Nelson the slip."
Durrell's face shone with sudden exultation.
"Man, is it true?"
"True as news can be. But listen to this. He has picked up some of the Spaniards, driven Orde's squadron out of the way, and is at sea. All England is in a sweat, and cursing. They know nothing. They quake in the dark."
"Yes—but Nelson?"
"Listen. This would be worth money in England. Villeneuve sails for the West Indies. Don't breathe it. He cuts himself loose, see—disappears. The English are left at blindman's-buff. Then the West Indies are harried. Nelson is lured thither. Back bolts Villeneuve, drives the blockading fleet from Brest, joins our ships there, and sails up the Channel with close on forty sail of the line. The straits are ours. Napoleon rushes his grenadiers across. After that—the deluge!"
Durrell stood and stared towards the sea with a look of exultation.
"And we shall help to bring in liberty."
De Rothan sneered behind the visionary's back.
"We shall show them where and how to strike. This house and hill of yours, Durrell, will be the first point they will make safe. There will be trenches and batteries here. The Emperor will stand upon your terrace, sir, with all the gorgeous gentlemen of his staff. As for me, I shall be the light-heeled Mercury. I know where the cattle and corn are to be found. I know the powder-mills, the best wells, every road and by-road. I shall be with the cavalry. God—these raw, red-coated bumpkins! How we shall sabre them!"
Durrell was like a man who had heard that his great enemy was to be overwhelmed with ruin and shame. England had made him suffer, and, fanatic and dreamer that he was, his enthusiasm did not lack a spice of vengeance. He wanted to see England suffer in turn, to see her purged of the poison of privilege, of the aristocrats, the lordlings, and the rich commoners whom he hated.
His mood came near to gaiety, if an austere and fanatical excitement can be called gay. He forgave De Rothan his vanity, and went in holding the arch-spy's arm as a man holds the arm of his dearest friend. De Rothan had twinkles of cynical amusement in his eyes. What did a bookworm and a dreamer expect from Napoleon and the French? He would be left to chant rhapsodies in a corner, and to shout "Liberty! Liberty!" provided that he did not turn round and shout it to the English.
De Rothan took advantage of Durrell's good humour, and prepared to enjoy himself with Nance. The girl's silence and reserve piqued him. He loved conquests, and would boast that no woman could withstand him.
His gallantry and his oglings worried Nance. She disliked the expression of his quarrelsome blue eyes. He was too free, too familiar to please her, nor was she in a mood for coquetry. Her opinion of De Rothan was suggested by the fact that she had not changed her old stuff dress.
"Ah, Mees Nance, your hands play with the cups and the sugar and the milk as though you played the harpsichord. Have you music here? No? Your father should buy you a harpsichord. It would show off your pretty fingers."
"I should not be able to play it."
"No? Why, by the honour of Louis, I would teach you myself. So many of us exiles have become music-masters. Durrell, my good friend, buy your daughter a harpsichord, and I will teach her to play and to sing."
Durrell gave them one of his austere smiles. He was happy, exultant, and saw nothing sinister in De Rothan's playfulness.
"All in good time—all in good time. Nance has not had all that she might have had."
"What, sir! And she has so much already! Most of the women would think she had too much."
He bowed to Nance.
"One may not drink to beauty—in tea. The sparkling wine of France! I imagine that I drink it to you, Mees Nance."
The girl was silent and irresponsive. Perhaps De Rothan felt challenged; perhaps she pleased him more than he had expected. Before the meal was over some of the froth had been blown from his fooling. The man was more than half in earnest. The expression of his eyes changed. They betrayed a subtle, gloating, admiration that is seen at times in the eyes of men.
De Rothan's leave-taking was half insolent, half tender. It had always been his way to treat women with audacity. He attacked them with the bold ferocity of his self-confidence.
"Mees Nance, this is the first day of spring. I kiss your hands. I felicitate your father. Never will he produce another such poem."
His bold eyes thrust his admiration into her face. Durrell was still living in dreams.
"Must you go, my friend? Well, well, now that you are in these parts, we shall see you more often."
"Sir, could I help it? The sun shines at Stonehanger."
Nance was silent and thoughtful when De Rothan had gone. She cleared the tea things away, while Anthony Durrell sat on the couch by the window and filled the bowl of a long clay pipe.
"Who is that man, father?"
"De Rothan? An exile, a French aristocrat. He waits for the return of King Louis."
Durrell showed the Jesuitical spirit in his belief that the end justified the means.
"Has he been long in Sussex?"
"No, not very long. Otherwise you would have seen him before."
"Where does he live?"
"He has rented an old house away yonder over the ridge?"
It was on Nance's tongue to speak of that night when she had heard De Rothan's voice in her father's room. But some impulse drove the words back. She went put with the tray, leaving her father to dream impossible dreams of an impossible future.
She was thinking of Jasper Benham, nor was it very marvellous that Jasper could keep her in countenance in the matter of thinking. He had ridden home in no pleasant temper, puzzled and challenged by Anthony Durrell's blunt prejudice against him. Nor could Jasper help remembering Parson Goffin's insinuations. Durrell might not want strangers at Stonehanger. And yet it seemed bad policy to be so frankly churlish.
At Rush Heath Jasper found half-a-score red-coats drinking beer in the stable-yard. Jack Bumpstead was watering their horses, and joining in the gossip that flitted about the pewter pots.
"Capt'n Jennison be in t' parlour, Master Jasper."
And Jasper found Captain Jennison comfortably seated at breakfast, making himself wholly at home in Squire Kit's chair.
He was a grim-mouthed, swarthy little man, with massive limbs and a big chest. His temper was abrupt and dangerous.
"Morning to you, Benham. Time's precious, sir. Excuse me if I open my mouth to eat and to talk. I have important orders, sir, but Captain Curtiss was not to be found. God knows what the man has done with himself!"
Jasper drew a chair to the table, and helped himself to cold meat-pie.
"I am at your service, captain."
"The fact is, sir, that Villeneuve has got out of Toulon. Where Nelson is, only the devil knows. Mischief is brewing, and we are most damnably in the dark. They say that in London men have faces as long as lamp-posts. We are to be on the alert, sir. I have been sent out to warn all the volunteer officers to have their men ready for any emergency."
"Then there is a chance of the French getting across?"
"A confoundedly good chance, sir, and I can't say I have much faith in our row of dove-cots and their pop-guns. We must have every man ready who can carry a musket. Whip up all your men, billet 'em in Battle, somewhere handy—here, if you like. Have your wagons ready. We are waiting in the dark. Villeneuve may be coming up the Channel for all we know."
Jasper had the grave face of a man who took his duties very seriously.
"It shall be done, Captain Jennison. I am to act for Captain Curtiss?"
"Good Lord, sir, yes. That gentleman will be shaving himself when the French cavalry are galloping past Tunbridge."
Captain Jennison gathered his men and rode on, while Jasper sent Jack Bumpstead to re-saddle Devil Dick, and went to spend five minutes with his father. He was fond of the fiery, blasphemous old curmudgeon, and Squire Kit was proud of Jasper, and very generous in his way. He was the sort of man who cursed because it had become a habit with him, and ill health had not sweetened his temper.
"Well, Jasper, well, lad——?"
"Captain Jennison has been here, father. It is likely that the French may get across."
"The French! Rot their teeth! Let 'em come, sir. What are we in such a pest of a fear of the French for? We'll give 'em something to remember. Let 'em come, I say."
Jasper was at the door and ready to mount when a green curricle came swinging up the road, with Rose Benham's plain face looking out from a big straw bonnet.
Jasper smothered a gust of impatience. Rose threw the reins to the groom, and descended with an air of eager concern.
"Jasper, what is the news? I have heard all sorts of rumours."
"It seems likely that the French will get across."
"The wretches!"
"We have orders to bring our men together. I am off to whip them in."
A gloved hand came out, and touched Jasper's sleeve.
"O, Jasper, what will happen? I can't help being afraid."
Rose was not at her best when she was sentimental.
"Every one will be warned. You will have to go inland."
"I was not thinking of myself, Jasper. I shall be praying to God for you and our friends. But why should I be sent away? Women may be of use."
"It may not come to that, Rose."
Her hand still touched his sleeve, and her display of tenderness irritated him. He could not return it, and his mouth felt stiff.
"How grave you look. Does Uncle Kit know?"
"Yes."
"Poor, dear old man. I might go and comfort him."
"I shouldn't, Rose."
For Squire Kit was deep in one long, blasphemous soliloquy.
There was a short, constrained silence, Jasper avoiding his cousin's eyes.
"Now, I know I am keeping you. Duty calls. But, O Jasper, it is hard——"
"The French are not here yet."
"How brave and calm you look."
She had tried very hard to make the man kiss her, but Jasper's face was obstinate and cold.
Meanwhile Jasper Benham was at the end of his patience, and a creature of moods and savage bewilderment. Nance's strange hostility had not helped him toward decision. He was too much in love with the girl to seek to be revenged upon her because there was something that he could not understand. Even supposing that Anthony Durrell was a French spy, and that Nance knew it and wished to safeguard her father, what had she to fear from him; what reason had she for treating him with suspicion?
Well, what was to be done?
Jasper had spent two morose, vacillating days, and the moral quandary seemed all the deeper. What a scolding shrew was this thing called Duty! He was to denounce Durrell, was he—send red-coats to turn Stonehanger upside down, and lose, perhaps forever, his chance of Nance! No, Duty be cursed; he would do no such thing. If this clumsy meddling were the only means that Duty could suggest, he would throw Duty aside and stand by his own more magnanimous instincts.
Jasper was riding Devil Dick over Rush Heath farm when he came cheek-by-jowl with this decision. Restlessness had set him in the saddle, and it was still early in the afternoon when he found himself looking over a thorn hedge into a big turnip field that sloped southward toward the edge of a wood. A solitary, lean, brown figure showed up against the green of the young growth, a figure that moved its arms with the monotonous action of a man hoeing.
Jasper rode through the gateway into the turnip field and remained watching the man with the hoe. The labourer drew near with his back turned, chopping away sedulously at the young weeds. Jasper knew him for Tom Stook of Bramble End, an odd hand who was taken on by the Benhams' bailiff when there was a press of work, or hay and corn to be gathered in.
Tom Stook was a very tall man with great bony limbs that seemed loosely slung at the joint sockets. He had a hawk's beak of a nose, a little tufted beard at the chin, and deep-set, cautious eyes. He kept on hoeing, as though he had not so much as glimpsed Jasper out of the corner of an eye.
"Well, Tom, Webster has found you a job, has he?"
Stook straightened his back, drew in his hoe, leant upon it, and regarded Jasper with a sort of cautious respect.
"Mornin', Master Jasper."
"Weeds bad?"
"Pretty tarrifyin'. Be'unt so bad down yon end."
Now Tom Stook was one of the most garrulous of rogues when gossip did not press too tenderly upon such personal matters as poaching and smuggling. He was a bit of a ruffian, sly, shrewd, and immensely strong. Folk had tales to tell about him and his lonely hovel of a cottage down by Bramble End.
Tom Stook hoed and talked, wagging his tuft of a beard, and throwing queer, spying glances at Jasper.
"No more beacons afire, sir?"
"Not yet, Tom."
"That did tarrify the folk. I seed ut begin a'glimmering just afore midnight."
"You keep late hours, Tom."
"I doan't knows as I do."
He hoed on in silence for some moments.
"T 'rabbits be tarrible thick down our way. They'd be for eatin' all the green stuff, if I didn't snare 'em. Maybe I keeps late hours now and agen. A man sees some funny things of a night, surely."
"What sort of things, Tom?"
"Lights, and men wid dark lanterns. Smugglers and Frenchies."
"Oh, come, Tom!"
"Sure, I be tellin' the truth."
"Where do you see the lights?"
"Up yonder, at Stonehanger. It be'unt no sort of a light, but a sort of a glare fur the while you count ten. I doan't say nothing to nobody. We be'unt none of us so tarrible honest, Master Jasper, as we can pull other folks' clothes off their beds. But I've seed strange men go over Stonehanger Common at midnight."
Jasper kept a grave and rather sceptical face.
"When you go out rabbiting, Tom?"
Stook grunted.
"I doan't know nothing 'bout that."
"Nor do I, Tom. If the men didn't have a few rabbits, we shouldn't have any crops."
"Sure, Master Jasper, I always said you be a young man o' sense."
"The squire likes his punch, Tom. We don't ask too many questions in Sussex. I'll wager we have stuff in our cellar that never paid duty."
Stook went on hoeing methodically.
"Do y' know that thur furriner, sir? That black chap as rides about on a black horse?"
"Who do you mean, Tom?"
"Frenchy gentleman."
"Do you mean the Chevalier de Rothan?"
"It may be him, Master Jasper. I've seed the man I mean up at Stonehanger."
"The devil you have!"
"I've seed him come over t' common just afore daylight. You know t' old quarry 'twixt Bramble End and Stonehanger?"
"Yes."
"I've knowed him leave his nag thur all night. I've seed him, too, with Durrell's girl."
"What d' you mean, Tom?"
"No harm, master. Why, I seed 'em two days ago going over t' common. I was down under yonder cutting a bit o' furze to thatch m' wood lodge with."
"What day was it—Tuesday?"
"It ud be Tuesday."
Jasper sat and stared across the turnip field with the level stare of grim preoccupation. Tom Stook's lean figure had faced about, and was receding, with rhythmical strokes of the hoe.
"Have you told any one about this, Tom?"
"Sure, no, I ain't, Master Jasper. I be'unt one for tongue-wagging 'bout other folks's business. Guess, though, I've been puzzled. I be'unt no baby."
"No."
"I knows t' lads, and t' rabbit runs, and t' warrens."
"I reckon you do, Tom. But Stonehanger? Mr. Durrell's not hiding the stuff, is he?"
"That be what mizzles me."
"He isn't one of the gang?"
Tom grew reticent of a sudden.
"Don't you be for askin' me, Master Jasper."
"Well, about the foreigner. Are you sure you know him?"
"Maybe I be wrong, master."
"He and Durrell are something of a size."
"That be true."
"I'm glad you've told me this, Tom. You'll find half a side of bacon waiting to be given away up at the Hall."
Tom jogged his hat.
"Thank ye, Master Jasper. I doan't drop no words into t' old women's laps. I keep t' spigot in, sir, 'cept when a gentleman o' sense be about."
Jasper turned Devil Dick and rode out of the field in a very different temper from that in which he had entered it.
Hot blood is jealous blood, and Jasper was no bloodless saint. Tom Stook had sprung a surprise on him, and let fly with a blunderbuss into the thick of Jasper's perplexities. He had owned to a healthy if casual hatred of De Rothan, but personal, prejudiced hatred is a very different thing from vague antagonism. Good lovers are good haters, and Jasper was hating De Rothan at full gallop.
"Seems to me Stonehanger is a nest of spies! Deuce take it, how did we miss knowing De Rothan for a rogue! He and the girl are friends, are they? Oh, my innocent, sweet child! Oh, you besotted fool, Jasper Benham. Have it out with them, have it out."
Jasper rode straight for Stonehanger in about as black a temper as a man can boast. He had no very definite ideas as to what he meant to do. Feeling violent, savage, and very much befooled, he just rode toward Stonehanger, letting the impulse of his jealousy urge him thither.
The track he chose came from the south over the common, leaving Bramble End lying half a mile to the south-east. Jasper passed the quarry where Tom Stook said that De Rothan had sometimes left his horse. Jasper peered into it, and found the quarry a mere pit full of broom and brambles, its entrance half choked by a big elder-tree. But there were trampled places here and there, and a rough path that led out on to the common.
Any one approaching Stonehanger from the south had all but the roof and chimneys of the house hidden from him by a heave of the ground. Then one came into full and sudden view of the place with its grey terrace and wind-blown trees. Such a passion as jealousy often provokes the opposites of a man's normal nature, and Benham developed a spirit of wariness and cunning. He dismounted as soon as he saw the chimneys of the house, found a spot amid the furze where he could fasten Devil Dick to the tough stem of a furze-bush, and went on foot.
The windows and terrace rose into view, with the wind-blown yews and thorns, and then the stretch of grassland immediately below the terrace. It was here that Jasper dodged down behind the furze like a stalker sighting a stag. The lines of his face grew hard and keen. He took off his hat, and, thrusting it into the furze, made a sort of loophole between the boughs through which he could watch Stonehanger unobserved.
A man was walking to and fro on the grassland below the terrace, flourishing a stick as though he were trying the suppleness of his wrist for sword-play. Sometimes he would pause and draw imaginary patterns on the ground with the point of the stick. Or he would stride as if measuring the ground, look about him critically, and scan the surrounding country. There appeared to be some purpose in this pacing to and fro. The man might have been an engineer surveying the ground for the throwing up of earthworks and the placing of guns.
The man was De Rothan. Jasper knew him by his height, by his black clothes, and his haughty, swaggering walk. Only De Rothan could have flourished a stick with such gusto.
Jasper looked grim.
"Hallo, so it's you, is it! Tom Stook was right. What the devil do you think you are doing marching about up there?"
He watched De Rothan jealously, thoughtfully.
"Measuring the ground? Trenches and redoubts? By George, that's it! Why did I never think of that before? Stonehanger would make one of the strongest positions for ten miles round. A landing party might seize it and hold on——. Hallo!"
He was all eyes for the moment, for another figure had appeared upon the terrace. Jasper could see only the head and shoulders behind the low wall. It was Nance Durrell, a white sun-bonnet covering her black hair.
He saw her come to the edge of the terrace and look over. The white strings of her sun-bonnet were over her shoulders. She rested her hands on the parapet and watched De Rothan pacing to and fro below.
Jasper became for the moment the most violent of cynics. A sense of his own ineptitude tormented him. He believed that he understood all that was happening up yonder.
De Rothan turned and caught sight of Nance. He gave her a magnificent bow, sweeping hat and stick with splendid expressiveness. As for Benham, the toe of his boot alone could have expressed his emotions.
"Coxcomb—dog of a spy!"
They were talking together up yonder, and Jasper could hear the faint sound of their voices. Nance appeared to lean forward over the parapet with an intimate friendliness that did not ease Jasper's jealousy.
De Rothan approached the steps. He mounted them, turned to the right and sat himself down on the parapet within a yard of Nance. He laid his hat beside him and tapped one of the coping stones with his stick. Nance did not edge away. She perched herself facing him. It was evident that they were talking together.
Jasper imagined all manner of intimate confidences passing between them. Confound De Rothan, he seemed on excellent terms with the girl! No doubt that was why the Frenchman had looked him over with such amused insolence when they had met.
Jasper knelt awhile behind the furze, gripping his coat collar with one hand, and staring hard at the green gorse. He was ready to believe that De Rothan was Nance's lover, and a passion of repulsion held him for the moment. The anger in his blood was a cold and ugly anger. A man feels the more bitter when he has reason to despise himself.
Then a thought struck him.
"Yes, by George! That's it! I'll make sure of the man. Tom Stook shall have a look at him."
He started up, and, keeping his body bent, made his way back toward his horse.
"I'll make sure that Monsieur de Rothan is Tom Stook's man. Then, by George! I'll call him to account."
Bob, the gardener, scything grass in the Rush Heath garden, saw Jasper and Mr. Jeremy Winter come out of the house while the dew still lay upon the grass. Jasper had a pair of foils under his arm. The two gentlemen stripped off their coats in the long walk, rolled up their shirt-sleeves and began to fence. They were at it for an hour or more in short, sharp bursts, Jeremy pulling the younger man up from time to time, and making him repeat some series of parries and passes. The clinking of the foils made a thin and constant tingle of sound, broken now and again by Jeremy's deep and imperturbable voice. There was no blood in the battle, but the great poppies in the borders were the colour of blood.
Jeremy was not ill-pleased with these practise bouts.
"You will soon have a quick point again. The man behind the sword's the thing. Nerve, and a devilish sharp eye."
"You will warrant me sound in a week, Jeremy?"
"Not far off, not far off. Don't forget the pistols, though. And look you, lad, the game is to play up to the vanity of a man like De Rothan. Fencing's a subtle art. 'Tain't all wrist and sinew. There's mind in it, personality, soul. It's a picking to bits of human nature. You don't fight a man's sword alone, but his grit, or his conceit, and his damned flourishes."
"You are a cunning master, Jeremy."
"Why, confound me, half life is acting. Act when you fight, lad. I could play a man like De Rothan the veriest clown's game, make him think me a bungler, and run him through before he had the sense to take me seriously. That's what fighting should be, brain as well as beef."
They went in to breakfast, a silent meal so far as Jasper was concerned. Jeremy Winter watched him with affectionate amusement. A man of fifty renews his youth in seeing a young man in love.
"I have it, Jeremy!"
"What, lad?"
"An idea."
It did not unfold itself, for there was a sudden violent hammering on the floor of the room above. Mr. Christopher Benham was using the heel of his shoe to attract attention.
"Hallo, the squire's awake."
"I'll go up and see what he wants. I say, Jeremy, not a word about this."
"Not a word. He'd curse me out of the country for egging you on to take risks."
"Besides, there's Rose. You remember Rose?"
Jeremy drew in his lips.
"Remember her, by gad! We always quarrelled, Rose and I. So he wants you to marry her?"
"I don't know. Rose can twist him round her finger. I don't want her meddling in my affairs."
"The less a woman knows the better."
Jasper spent the morning practising with his pistols in the little meadow by Ten Acre Wood. He chose the meadow because it was a mile or more from the house, and the oaks of the wood smothered the reports of the pistol. He did not wish the sound to come to Mr. Christopher's ears, for he was in an intensely irritable state, and very feeble. The most trivial thing would send him into a gouty rage, and his rages left him breathless and inarticulate.
After dinner Jasper ordered Jack Bumpstead to saddle Devil Dick. Jeremy Winter stood smoking a pipe in the porch, and watched him mount and ride out.
Jasper headed straight toward Stonehanger. His face had a set and very determined look. He was out on a grave business, and on his guard against sentiment and romance.
It was still and sultry, and there was a fog at sea. Grey haze covered the hills, and the long grass in the fields hardly so much as stirred. Stonehanger Common lay in the full, thundery glare of the afternoon sunlight. Warm, dry perfumes rose from it, and the gorse looked a dusty green. Jasper followed the lane, and, pushing Devil Dick through a gap in the hedge, approached Stonehanger from the western side. His plan of campaign promised to adapt itself to the identity of the person who chanced to meet the first attack.
As it happened, he came upon David Barfoot by the gate that led into the rough meadow where Jenny the cow was turned out to grass. The coincidence faced Jasper with two alternatives. He made a sign to David, and the old man came and stood by Devil Dick's right shoulder.
"Is Miss Nance at home?"
David watched Jasper's lips.
"She be out, Master Benham."
"And Mr. Durrell?"
"Would you be wanting to see him?"
David's sceptical sincerity stirred Jasper's inclinations. He discovered a very human desire to set eyes on Nance. Durrell! Barfoot was right. Anthony Durrell could go to the devil.
He was surprised to find David Barfoot so ready to help him.
"Do you know where she is?"
"She be gone down t' sea lane."
"Straight on?"
"Sure."
"I might meet her if I rode on down the lane." Barfoot grinned approvingly.
"I'm telling ye," he said.
The lane went winding down between furze-clad banks, a green way powdered with wild flowers. About half a mile from Stonehanger House the lane broadened out into a kind of grassy stream that meandered as it pleased. Jasper reined in on a piece of rising ground, and scanned the land ahead of him. Two furlongs to the south stood a group of may-trees. They were smothered in blossom, and their massed floweriness made them look like a great heap of white wool or of snow.
Jasper caught sight of a figure moving on the outskirts of these trees, a figure that loitered, and reached up to break off the flowering sprays. He had ridden to Stonehanger convinced that he could hold himself well in hand and that he could talk to Nance as dispassionately as he would have talked to his cowman's grandmother. But when he saw that figure down by the may-trees, Jasper knew why he hated De Rothan, and why he was trying to compromise with Nance.
He rode on, rather slowly, stiffening his upper lip as though he were in for a life-and-death tussle and not for a scene with a mere girl. Jasper had planned out what he would say, and how he would say it. He had stalked up and down the Rush Heath rose-walk, putting his emotions in order, and choosing his texts.
Something spoiled all that. It was his own sincerity, and the face and figure of the girl leaning through the foliage of a may-tree, and looking at him with widely opened eyes. This particular tree grew hollowed out on the inside, its lower branches lying like so many ledges with bands of shadow in between them. The long grass was all white and gold with buttercups and moon-faced daisies.
Jasper lifted his hat.
"David Barfoot told me I might find you down the lane."
His sudden appearing had thrown Nance's thoughts into confusion. She had been thinking about him, and he had startled the intimate inwardness of her thoughts. She was too conscious of their last meeting and the way she had rebuffed him.
She came out from amid the may boughs with a troubled shadowiness of the eyes. A sheaf of the white blossom lay in the hollow of her left arm. Perplexity is apt to simulate coldness and pride. She looked cold and white and upon the defensive.
The silence irked them both. They took refuge in vague superficialities.
"Fine trees, these. They looked like a pile of snow in the distance."
"Yes. I love the smell of may blossom."
"Scents carry one back to all sorts of memories."
"I know. I always like a bowl of wild flowers in my room."
"Are you going back to Stonehanger?"